Still trust restaurant reviews? • Hacker News Board

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#11

Post by saturdaysaint » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:12 PM UTC

The signal-to-noise has worsened appreciably on Yelp to the point where I rarely look beyond the star rating and the number of reviews, and even then I take the star rating with a grain of salt. The folksy, storytelling style they seem to have championed makes reading through even a sampling of the top reviews unbearable. It's too bad - I think they could successfully "pivot" (sorry) into everything from location to coupons relatively easily if their community didn't suck.

That said, Yelp is already fairly well integrated with the social graph (via Connect) and one of the best use-cases for Yelp is for finding destinations away from your main locale and, presumably, your social graph. I don't think this approach will add value.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#12

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:23 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #3

I trust Yelp/Urbanspoon reviews the same way I trust Amazon reviews: By reading them and looking for clues that the reviewer is real and has astes and concerns similar to mine. I gloss over uncritical reviews, whether they're real or not; a review that says "everything was great but the fries" I'll put stock in. It's possible that astroturfers could start taking that into account, but it's hard to imagine. The kind o…

Yeah, Viewpoints Network tried the approach of "reviewers similar to me" and nobody really cared. Now they're just another opinion engine.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#13

Post by gmichnikov » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:25 PM UTC

I also find Yelp pretty useless at this point, so I've been hoping to find a site that allows me to easily see the places that my friends (or friends of friends) have been and to see their reviews of those places. Are all reviews on your site going to be public, or is there going to be an option to only show them to your friends and their friends? I'm hoping it's the latter.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#14

Post by kliao » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:25 PM UTC

akitchell wrote: post #10

nostromo wrote: post #7

> To solve the anonymous review problem, its time to inject real identities into recommendations. People are usually more honest when speaking anonymously -- not the other way around. It may help with astroturfing and flaming temporarily, but competitors and trolls will always find a way around real identity online.

Interesting point - what if your reviews are shared between your friends? Our findings are that people can be honest in a community where they know their recommendations will mostly help their friends find great places.

i sometimes don't trust my friends' recommendations. what if my friends and I don't share the same tastes? or, maybe my friend recommended a sushi place, but it was the first time she tried sushi...

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#15

Post by jdminhbg » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

akitchell wrote: post #10

nostromo wrote: post #7

> To solve the anonymous review problem, its time to inject real identities into recommendations. People are usually more honest when speaking anonymously -- not the other way around. It may help with astroturfing and flaming temporarily, but competitors and trolls will always find a way around real identity online.

Interesting point - what if your reviews are shared between your friends? Our findings are that people can be honest in a community where they know their recommendations will mostly help their friends find great places.

The problem with that is I don't need a digital way to manage word-of-mouth from my friends; I can handle that mentally. I need a way to find out about places my friends haven't been to.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#16

Post by jerf » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:30 PM UTC

akitchell wrote: post #10

nostromo wrote: post #7

> To solve the anonymous review problem, its time to inject real identities into recommendations. People are usually more honest when speaking anonymously -- not the other way around. It may help with astroturfing and flaming temporarily, but competitors and trolls will always find a way around real identity online.

Interesting point - what if your reviews are shared between your friends? Our findings are that people can be honest in a community where they know their recommendations will mostly help their friends find great places.

Take the number of your friends. Subtract the "lurker" ratio, which most studies show to be pretty high. Now subtract the ones who have never been to the place you want to see the review of. Now subtract the ones who went there but didn't review it (because do you leave reviews of every single business you use? if so, where do you find the time to do anything else?). The mode of the result will be 0.

If your friends are homogeneous and outgoing, you might achieve the critical mass necessary to have more than just one review on a handful of local businesses.

On Yelp, I have many local places with 0 reviews period, let alone by people I know.

Broader comment: Tying identities to reviews won't do squat. If I tell you I'm Bob Thurmond, put up a photo of an older white guy, and exercise even a modicum of identity management, who's going to be able to tell otherwise?

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#17

Post by IgorPartola » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:32 PM UTC

sedev wrote: post #8

Part of the point of the review model of Yelp (and Amazon, for that matter) is that you don't have to trust a review. You only have to trust the consensus of all of the reviewers - which, at best, is very, very hard to spoof. When I see a place on yelp with a 4-star average on 1000 reviews, I feel very confident about going there. It's hard to get to that critical mass, but far from impossible - and you don't need so…

Dealing with ungraceful customers is #1 thing I look for in a business. I am not usually ungraceful. I always try to be polite and friendly with any customer service rep, etc. However, I think it says a lot about a company.

For example, a budget hosting provider that I used for a while would go off on any customer who posted a negative review of them in the comments section of a blog I frequent (LowEndBox). They turned out to be a terrible provider and even being a reasonable customer, I could not get anything from their customer support.

This is the same principle that can be used at job interviews. Take the interviewee out to lunch and see how they treat the wait staff. Quick way to separate assholes from people that will gel well with your team.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#18

Post by akitchell » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

parfe wrote: post #4

I don't bother with 5 star or 1 star reviews. Too much emotion to be sensibly reviewed. Three stars provide a nice balance. Things like "food was good, but service was slow." I find more valuable than a 2 paragraph review about how a waiter spilled a glass of water and only comped one entrée or a five paragraph review that can be summarized as "I love this place more than breathing."

Agreed - and we think your friends would benefit from those short, honest, insightful comments as well.

Its all about providing an environment where people you care about can easily find your recommendations... so that when you do find a 5 star place, your reviews will be taken seriously.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#19

Post by IgorPartola » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:36 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #7

> To solve the anonymous review problem, its time to inject real identities into recommendations. People are usually more honest when speaking anonymously -- not the other way around. It may help with astroturfing and flaming temporarily, but competitors and trolls will always find a way around real identity online.

Persistence is what is needed, not anonymity. I don't care if the guy that wrote the review is of the opposite political persuasion than me. I just care that the last 3 restaurants where I ate on his recommendation were good, so the 4th is probably good too.

EDIT: I am suggesting using sha1(full_name + salt) as the displayed name.

Re: Still trust restaurant reviews?

#20

Post by akitchell » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 7:36 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #15

akitchell wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point - what if your reviews are shared between your friends? Our findings are that people can be honest in a community where they know their recommendations will mostly help their friends find great places.

The problem with that is I don't need a digital way to manage word-of-mouth from my friends; I can handle that mentally. I need a way to find out about places my friends haven't been to.

Interesting & strong point.

We're looking to solve that problem as well -- its a darn big challenge!